The U.S. Constitution has been amended 27 times, starting with the Bill of Rights in 1791 and ending with the Twenty-Seventh Amendment in 1992. This list of constitutional amendments walks through each one in order, with a plain summary of what it does and, where it matters, why it was added.
The Bill of Rights: Amendments 1 Through 10
The first ten amendments were ratified together on December 15, 1791. They grew out of a political bargain: Anti-Federalists refused to support the Constitution without explicit protections against government overreach. The result set hard limits on federal power and guaranteed individual freedoms that still sit at the center of American law.
- First Amendment. Protects freedom of speech, religion, the press, peaceful assembly, and the right to petition the government.
- Second Amendment. Protects the right to keep and bear arms.
- Third Amendment. Prohibits the government from forcing civilians to house soldiers in peacetime.
- Fourth Amendment. Guards against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires warrants to be backed by probable cause.
- Fifth Amendment. Prevents being tried twice for the same crime, protects against forced self-incrimination, requires due process before the government can take life, liberty, or property, and requires fair compensation when the government takes private property.
- Sixth Amendment. Guarantees a speedy and public trial, an impartial jury, and the right to legal counsel in criminal cases.
- Seventh Amendment. Preserves the right to a jury trial in federal civil cases where the amount at issue exceeds twenty dollars.1Constitution Annotated. U.S. Constitution – Seventh Amendment
- Eighth Amendment. Bans excessive bail, excessive fines, and cruel and unusual punishment.
- Ninth Amendment. Clarifies that listing specific rights in the Constitution does not mean the people lack other rights not mentioned.
- Tenth Amendment. Reserves all powers not granted to the federal government to the states or the people.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments do quieter structural work. The Ninth prevents the government from arguing that a right doesn’t exist simply because the Constitution doesn’t spell it out. The Tenth draws the boundary between federal and state authority, and it remains a frequent subject of litigation whenever Congress pushes into areas traditionally left to the states.
Amendments 11 and 12: Early Fixes
The next two amendments addressed problems that surfaced almost immediately after the Constitution took effect.
The Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1798, stripped federal courts of the power to hear lawsuits brought against a state by citizens of another state or by foreign nationals.2Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eleventh Amendment It was a direct response to the Supreme Court’s 1793 decision in Chisholm v. Georgia, which alarmed state governments by allowing a private citizen to haul a state into federal court. The amendment established the principle of state sovereign immunity that still shapes federal litigation.
The Twelfth Amendment, ratified in 1804, overhauled the Electoral College after the chaotic 1800 presidential election, when Thomas Jefferson and his running mate Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes and the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. The amendment fixed this by requiring electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president.3Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twelfth Amendment
Reconstruction Amendments: 13, 14, and 15
The three amendments ratified after the Civil War are sometimes called a second founding. Together they abolished slavery, redefined citizenship, and extended voting rights to formerly enslaved men.
The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, banned slavery and involuntary servitude throughout the United States, with a single exception: involuntary servitude may still be imposed as punishment for a criminal conviction.4Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment Before this amendment, slavery’s legality had been left to the states.
The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1868, granted citizenship to all persons born or naturalized in the United States, overturning the Supreme Court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision.5Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fourteenth Amendment It also prohibited states from denying any person equal protection of the laws or depriving anyone of life, liberty, or property without due process. Those two clauses have generated more Supreme Court litigation than almost any other provision in the Constitution, serving as the basis for landmark rulings on segregation, marriage equality, and countless other issues. The Fourteenth Amendment is also the vehicle courts have used to apply most of the Bill of Rights to state governments.
The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, prohibited the federal government and the states from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race, color, or previous condition of servitude.6Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Fifteenth Amendment In practice, Southern states spent the next century circumventing this guarantee through poll taxes, literacy tests, and other tactics. Full enforcement didn’t arrive until the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Each of the three Reconstruction amendments includes a section granting Congress the power to enforce it through legislation.7Congress.gov. Modern Doctrine on Enforcement Clause
Progressive Era Amendments: 16 Through 19
The early twentieth century brought a burst of constitutional activity driven by reform movements that reshaped how the government raises money, how senators get their jobs, and who gets to vote.
The Sixteenth Amendment, ratified in 1913, authorized Congress to tax income without dividing the revenue among states based on population.8Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Sixteenth Amendment Before this amendment, a federal income tax had been struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional. The change gave the federal government its most important revenue tool.
The Seventeenth Amendment, also ratified in 1913, required senators to be elected directly by voters rather than chosen by state legislatures.9Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Seventeenth Amendment The original system had become plagued by corruption and political gridlock, with some state legislatures deadlocking for months and leaving Senate seats vacant.
The Eighteenth Amendment, ratified in 1919, prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.10Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Eighteenth Amendment Prohibition proved extraordinarily difficult to enforce and fueled organized crime. It remains the only amendment ever fully repealed by a later amendment.
The Nineteenth Amendment, ratified in 1920, prohibited denying the right to vote on the basis of sex.11Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Nineteenth Amendment It was the culmination of a women’s suffrage movement that had been organized and active for more than seventy years, and it roughly doubled the eligible electorate overnight.
Modern Amendments: 20 Through 27
The remaining eight amendments handle a mix of structural housekeeping and continued expansion of voting rights.
The Twentieth Amendment, ratified in 1933, moved the presidential inauguration from March 4 to January 20 and set January 3 as the start of new congressional terms. The old schedule left a four-month gap between Election Day and the transfer of power, creating a long lame-duck period. The amendment also addressed what happens if a president-elect dies before taking office.
The Twenty-First Amendment, ratified in 1933, repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and ended Prohibition.12Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-First Amendment It is the only amendment ever to repeal another. It also gave individual states the power to regulate alcohol within their borders, which is why liquor laws still vary so widely across the country.
The Twenty-Second Amendment, ratified in 1951, limits presidents to two terms in office. A person who has served more than two years of someone else’s term can only be elected once on their own.13Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment The amendment was a direct response to Franklin Roosevelt’s four consecutive election victories. Before this, the two-term limit was a tradition started by George Washington, not a legal requirement.
The Twenty-Third Amendment, ratified in 1961, gave residents of Washington, D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections by granting the District a number of electoral votes equal to what it would have if it were a state, capped at the number held by the least populous state.14Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Third Amendment In practice, D.C. has three electoral votes. The amendment does not give D.C. voting representation in Congress.
The Twenty-Fourth Amendment, ratified in 1964, banned poll taxes in federal elections.15Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Fourth Amendment Poll taxes had been used, particularly in Southern states, to keep low-income and Black voters away from the polls. The Supreme Court extended this prohibition to state elections two years later.
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment, ratified in 1967, established clear procedures for presidential succession and disability. If the president dies or resigns, the vice president becomes president. If the vice presidency becomes vacant, the president nominates a replacement who must be confirmed by both chambers of Congress. The amendment also allows the president to temporarily transfer power to the vice president during periods of incapacity, and it provides a mechanism for the vice president and a majority of the cabinet to declare the president unable to serve.16Congress.gov. Implementation of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment It was invoked twice in the 1970s when Gerald Ford became vice president and then president without ever being elected to either office.
The Twenty-Sixth Amendment, ratified in 1971, lowered the voting age to eighteen.17Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Sixth Amendment The driving argument was straightforward. If eighteen-year-olds were old enough to be drafted and sent to fight in Vietnam, they were old enough to vote for the leaders making those decisions.
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment prevents any change to congressional pay from taking effect until after the next election of Representatives.18Congress.gov. Overview of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, Congressional Compensation It was originally proposed alongside the Bill of Rights in 1789 but wasn’t ratified until May 7, 1992, more than 202 years later.19Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives. The Twenty-Seventh Amendment A University of Texas student who discovered the forgotten proposal in the 1980s launched the ratification campaign that finally pushed it over the finish line.
Why the List Stops at 27
Article V of the Constitution sets out how amendments happen. A proposal needs a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate, and ratification then requires approval by three-fourths of the states, which currently means 38 out of 50.20National Archives. Article V, U.S. Constitution The president plays no role, and cannot veto a proposed amendment.21National Archives. Constitutional Amendment Process
Every one of the 27 existing amendments followed the congressional-proposal route. The Twenty-First was the only one ratified by state conventions rather than state legislatures.22Constitution Annotated. Overview of Article V, Amending the Constitution Out of more than 11,000 proposals introduced in Congress, only 33 have received the necessary two-thirds vote, and just 27 of those were ratified by the states. Notable proposals that fell short include the Equal Rights Amendment, which reached 38 state ratifications but only after its deadline had passed, and the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment, which expired in 1985 well short of the required states.23Congress.gov. Proposals to Amend the U.S. Constitution: Fact Sheet